Suddenly smiling, she said in Gaelic. “Master . . . master. Ita has a mark like that, too. See?” she held up her own opened right hand.
Harold and Rupen, comprehending none of the guttural language, both sprang up in alarm, certain that the Scot was suffering some sort of seizure, for he had stared, bug-eyed, at Ita’s tiny hand, first paling to ashmess. then going red as fire.
Grasping both her wrists in a crushing grip, Manus demanded of the once more terrified girl, “Who are you, child’?” Who was your sire? Your mother? Damn you, tell me\” Furiously, he shook her. Trembling and gasping like a spent horse, she spoke no more words, but rather began to cry.
“Manus . . . ?” said Harold of York softly, then, when he did not thus get the Scot’s attention, his voice took on the timbre and snap of the military leader he had perforce been in years past.
“Bishop Manus Mac Dhomhnuill, you will at once release the child and cease to abuse her and shout at her! What has she done to offend you, anyway?”
After Rupen and Harold had dried Ita’s tears, comforted and calmed her to the point of only an occasional burping sob, and she sat at Harold’s side upon the carpet, her head against his knee, the Bishop of the Isles began to speak.
“Harold, you must know that between the vicissitudes that befall folk of all ranks and stations on the Isles, very few of us make old bones, least of all the men and women and even baims of mine own house and clan. My poor brother, the regulus, sired no daughters, only sons, eleven of them. Of those sons, three died at birth or near to it, two more were taken to God while still children, one was lost with the most of his ship’s company in a great tempest at sea. two fell in battle here in England during the late ill-starred Crusade, and yet another was so badly maimed on the retreat back to Scotland that he died shortly after he had been brought back to his home. Another fell, foully
murdered by a coward out of the Stillbhard ilk. in the very midst of a sacred truce. The last, my poor brother’s long-chosen heir, though the youngest of all eleven, died with all his retainers when pirates—presumed to be Irish slavers— attacked his island home, took away all the common folk, and laid siege to his tower. Unable to take it against such fierce resistance, they finally fired the roof, and my nephew then sallied out with his gillies and so wrought upon the attackers that they neither stripped nor mutilated his corpse, leaving it even his sword and armor, lest his indomitable spirit, living on in his arms and blade, do them all to death, in time.
“Those who were next to land on that island say that they believe that that brave young man’s wife took her own life lest she be enslaved and dishonored. Her ten-year-old son lay beside her, they said, having fought so hard and well, despite his tender years, that at last they had slain him, too. But no one ever found the body of their daughter, then a child of about four years . . . until now, here, in this room and on this blessed night.”
He half-rose and drew his chair closer to Harold’s. Whimpering, Ita shrank from him. cringing closer to the Archbishop, who softly patted her head with a blue-veined, bony hand.
Bishop Manus held out his own right hand, palm upward and held in such a way that both firelight and candlelight illuminated it and its vivid red-purple birthmark.
“You see this mark, Harold. Sir Rupen? It is known as the Bull from the Sea. and so far as is known, it never has appeared on any baim save one sired by a Mac Dhomhnuill . . . and not all of them. My brother has the Bull, I do, and that valiant prince who died defending his own, lain Mac Dhomhnuill, bore it as well. His brave little son did not. but … but his tiny daughter did’.
“Now, Harold, take that girl’s right hand and look well at what is upon the flesh of her palm.”
Rupen stood up to see the better as Harold held the fipened hands of Ita and Manus close together in the bright firelight, scrutinizing them from several distances and an-
gles. Then he shook his white-haired head in amazement, saying, “Save only for the disparity of sizes, they are almost identical, in shape and in coloring, as well.”
Bishop Manus nodded. “Just so, Harold. Now you know why I became so agitated. This Ita can be of no ilk save that of Mac Dhomhnuill. And she looks of just about the right age to be the little grandniece for the repose of whose innocent soul I have for so long prayed. Nor can any of you imagine how my poor bereft brother will rejoice at this blessed occurrence. His Grace of Norfolk will know well the gratitude of Clan Mac Dhomhnuill, ere long, and you, too, my dear friends.”
And so, a month later, down the road from the north came such a cavalcade that the citizens and garrison of that city once called Jorvik brought in their kine and barred their gates, thinking that the thrice-damned Scots once more were sending an invading army into England. Beneath a crested banner of finest silk, it bearing a motto in Latin—Per Mare per Terras—and borne high aloft on a gilded ashwood lance shaft, rode a richly dressed man. Although his face bore the marks of age and war and sorrow, his body looked muscular and firm and he easily handled the reins of a tall, prancing stallion.
Behind him, his banner, and a score of bodyguards rode above two hundred knights and noblemen, their squires, sergeants, and attendants. Two hundred mounted axemen preceded and flanked a long and rich train of waggons, a herd of spare horses, and a larger herd of skinny cattle of the long-horned and -haired breed of western and northern Scotland.
To the inestimable and very evident relief of the folk of York, this host of Scots camped on the site of the old Royal Army camp, well outside the walls. Only the old man and some of his guards, nobles, and knights actually entered the city, riding straight to Yorkminster and the archepiscopal palace.
Thanks to the efforts of Harold, Rupen, and Jenny Bostwick, the girl who was brought into the room, wherein were assembled Aonghas Dubh and his principal vassals.
along with Bishop Manus and a selection of the Scottish clergy just then in York, Archbishop Harold, and Sir Rupen, looked far less the part of a recently freed slave concubine and far more like a young maiden of good breeding.
Rumbling in a basso voice that sounded not in the least aged, the fearsome Lord of the Isles said in his native language, with tones that none of his many enemies ever had heard or would, “Come you to me.” Stripping off his doeskin-and-gold-thread riding glove, he held out to her a scarred and sinewy hand the palm of which bore the same red-purple mark as did her own and that of the bishop.
Now, at Bishop Manus’s firm insistence, Ita had been kept completely ignorant of the fact that this great lord was coming, and this day had been held secluded and alone in a distant part of the palace, so that she might have no inkling of the identity of the man she was being taken to meet. Therefore, the near-miracle that followed came as a shocking surprise to all who saw and heard it, those who could understand Gaelic, that is.
His hand still extended, Aonghas rumbled yet again, “I say, come you to me, little fair one.”
Then, it happened. Ita’s forehead wrinkled briefly, while her lips shaped soundless syllables, and then she said, questioningly, “Seanair? Seanair tarbhT’
Bishop Manus, among others of the Scots, paled and gasped, then he grasped his pectoral cross while his lips moved. But his brother roared out a wordless cry and in two long strides was upon Ita, his powerful arms crushing her frail form to him, while unashamed tears of joy cascaded down his lined, scarred old face and his thick, massive body shook to the intensity of his sobs, as he gasped out her true name over and over again, “Eibhlin, ^ny little Eibhlin, joy of my heart, Eibhlin, yes, you are back where you belong, Eibhlin, with your Grandfather Bull. Eibhlin, and no foul Irish pigs will ever take my little Eibhlin from me again, Eibhlin.”
Fully spanning her waist with both his hands, he rasied her above his head and turned about so that both of them faced his amazed vassals. “Look upon her fairness, clansmen,” he said in a voice that rattled the leaded panes in the windows, “for she is of our ilk. Look upon my dear little granddaughter, Eibhlin Mac Dhomhnuill, restored to us by God and a Sassenach Duke, assuredly our Lord’s implement. Look upon her! Now, down on your knees, all of you, and afford her her due homage, for she is Princess of the Isles and from out her loins will come your next chief and regulus!”